Cave Adventure Quotes

Favorite Quotations. I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue. The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it. It's not over till it's over. Imagination is everything. All life is an experiment. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.

To err is to wander and wandering is the way we discover the world and lost in thought it is the also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying but in the end it is static a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling and sometimes even dangerous but in the end it is a journey and a story. Who really wants to stay at home and be right when you can don your armor spring up on your steed and go forth to explore the world True you might get lost along get stranded in a swamp have a scare at the edge of a cliff thieves might steal your gold brigands might imprison you in a cave sorcerers might turn you into a toad but what of what To fuck up is to find adventure: it is in the spirit that this book is written.

When shall we be free? When shall we live adventurously, wholly, not like cripples in a cave?

Imagine in vibrant detail your heart’s desire—a reality only you can envision, an adventure only you can direct. Then cradle your creation. Caress it. Mold it. Coddle it until it comes to life. And when your precious treasure grows so grand as to steal your breath away, set it free for all the world to experience. For that is how you live your dreams.

And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music. [...]As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up - probably somebody lighting a wood-fire-and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again. He got up trembling.

From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing us from succumbing to lethargy, self-absorption, resignation. Nothing has sown so much disquiet, so disturbed our imagination and our desires as the life of lies we add, thanks to literature, to the one we have, so we can be protagonists in the great adventures, the great passions real life will never give us. The lies of literature become truths through us, the readers transformed, infected with longings and, through the fault of fiction, permanently questioning a mediocre reality. Sorcery, when literature offers us the hope of having what we do not have, being what we are not, acceding to that impossible existence where like pagan gods we feel mortal and eternal at the same time, that introduces into our spirits non-conformity and rebellion, which are behind all the heroic deeds that have contributed to the reduction of violence in human relationships. Reducing violence, not ending it. Because ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility.

all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave,

They reached the entrance to Oweynagat. “When is Samhain?” Chad asked, whispering in a timid voice. “Tomorrow,” Caplait answered. “Tomorrow?” Chad’s voice wobbled. “But the stories that Banban told us, of ghosts and two-headed monsters and the Morrigan—shouldn’t we wait until after Samhain?” “A week? But tomorrow is Samhain; you all heard what Banban told us! About the graves opening, and the spirits in this cave; the emerging of creatures from Oweynagat; the Morrigan on a chariot pulled by a onelegged chestnut horse; and the Ellen Trechen, the tripleheaded monster!

Reading sends you on one adventure after the other. It's a way to escape from the world, and comfort you at all times, no matter how rainy the day is.

You must return to the fairy cave while children sleep. Fairies only exist if children believe in Fairyland. If you return after they wake from their dreams, you could remain frozen between two worlds for all eternity.

Kill the women? No – nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you’re always as polite as pie to them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go home any more.

Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round— more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent

Perry does not love the cost of this adventure, but his investor brain is going to run the numbers. The brain always insists on being the last committee member to cave. The brain likes to make speeches that usually begin with a familiar opening:"Ladies and gentlemen, I have been wronged.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round— more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

She knew the cave wasn't very deep. But everything seems bigger in the dark.

The sacredness of the world is that it pursued the light; the sanctity of the cave is that it never left the darkness

I hate you, Edgar. I hate you with all my heart.

As he spoke these words, a giant wave, just like the one in Katsushika Hokusai’s, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” rippled in below the lofty ledge. Chaiya saw a thousand images in a second. “Brothers!” he shouted. “Brothers! Brothers! Brothers!…” His voice echoed and vibrated through their hearts. They were all wide awake. “The presence in the cave will swallow us up,” Chaiya thought.

Before you engage, you won’t know the outcome of the struggle. You may win the day easily, with barely a scratch. You may prevail, after much effort and after earning a few battle scars. You may fall, never to rise again. There may be treasure in the back of the cave, enough to live on in splendor for the rest of your days. There may be nothing. You may win glory and renown, or be considered a fool, worse off than you were before. This is the essence of life. The outcome of your actions and decisions is unknown and unknowable. What separates the adventurer from the bulk of humanity is the willingness to fight in spite of the risks: to meet the enemy on the field of valor, trusting in skill, instinct, and determination to see them through to a good end. There are no certainties and no guarantees. The hero fights anyway.

Jerado heard a splash followed by the roar of an explosion. Bits of equipment, glass and wood splattered against the back of the chair. A large chunk of table whizzed past his head and smashed into the cave’s wall. Ears ringing, Jerado sighed and waited for what he knew would happen next. “M . . . master?” “Yes, Remy?” “C. . . Can you sew my hand back on my wrist?” “Remy, Remy, Remy. You know how I hate doing mundane chores.” “B . . . but I can’t clean up the mess with only one hand.” “That is true. All right, fetch a needle and thread and I’ll repair your hand.” “A . . . And I need a new tunic. This one is in tatter

Just beyond the opening the cave was higher, and as the boat floated into the dim interior they found themselves on quite an extensive branch of the sea. For a time neither of them spoke and only the soft lapping of the water against the sides of the boat was heard. A beautiful sight met the eyes of the two adventurers and held them dumb with wonder and delight. It was not dark in this vast cave, yet the light seemed to come from underneath the water, which all around them glowed with an exquisite sapphire color. Where the little waves crept up the sides of the rocks they shone like brilliant jewels, and every drop of spray seemed a gem fit to deck a queen.

These days about the worst job you can have is be a US military man. It's so shameful. You're so expensive, yet so completely useless. You know you can't fuck with Russia because they'll just start blowing nukes up for shits and giggles. And you can fuck with China because they probably have a shitton of biological weapons stashed in every Chinatown to take out most US population very, very quickly. At least that’s what I would do, and THEY are a lot smarter than I am. So you keep busy and pretend to be useful by killing Arabs in caves and shit, cuz that seems like a pretty low risk adventure. but... even that's gonna come back and bite you in the Ass eventually... these things usually do...

Joseph Campbell’s wisdom: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Own the fear, find the cave, and write a new ending for yourself, for the people you’re meant to serve and support, and for your culture. Choose courage over comfort. Choose whole hearts over armor. And choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid. At the exact same time.

As I climbed back out of the sinkhole entrance, I met three men sitting in the shade of an oak tree. They were speculating on how much fun it would be to sometime throw a stick of dynamite into the cave to see how many bats would come out all at once. Of course the answer was none. They’d all be dead. These men weren’t maliciously inclined. They were simply ignorant and were quite apologetic when I explained the consequences of such an act. The appalling spectacle of how easily the world’s largest remaining bat colony could be destroyed by simple ignorance provided a strong reminder of just how important public education could be. I had no idea yet that the organization I had just founded would one day own and protect this key cave and use it to educate millions of people worldwide to understand the importance of conserving bats.

I followed all the advice my mind could compute and digested it to the best of my ability. I’d run, work out, eat healthy, and then swallow a fifth of whiskey. The man cave below my home began to look like a recycling center for Crown Royal and Jack Daniels distilleries. I discovered that empty whiskey bottles made an eerily satisfying thud when stacked up like cordwood. The sturdy glass was much thicker and stronger than my own skin, and I admired their resilience to outside forces.

One day an intrepid sole will climb this mountain on its east side, reaching the summit and the passage that exist between the main peak and secondary peaks, by which he can descend to the west side of the mountain. It is at this site near Lake Brunner, between the main peak and an adjacent stone pyramid, in a "hidden cave" that has been sealed by earthquakes common in the region . . . where lust for Inca gold must end for some . . . but for that intrepid sole . . . it shall be just the beginning!

Then Viol Chrime-Forgot and Sir Duno Chrime held each other tightly and wept sweet tears and Sir Duno Chrime swore that he did not care if his squire was a little strange and that he would never abandon him again so long as he lived and Viol Chrime-Forgot said he did not care if Duno Chrime was old, or mad or thought that he was made of glass, for he would never be apart from him again no matter what adventure fell, and though neither could hear each other over the roaring of the endless falls, or see each others tears for the misty dripping of the cave each knew what the other said and meant, and so they were friends again and remained so for as long as they both lived.

Kuan Yin is showing me visually how I’m (and we all are) part of a round ball of light that people call God,” delineates Lena. “There are those who would rather God were thought of as a person, a man with a white beard,” elaborates Kuan Yin. “However, for purposes of this manuscript, I will continue with this ball of light analogy of the God Force. Those who object to my use of the word ‘God’ or ‘God Force’ will just have to deal with it for now.” “I’m seeing not pie-shaped but straight slivers coming from this central ball of light,” depicts Lena. “These straight slivers of light become a person who plays out adventures from his or her beliefs. When you put all the slivers together they form God. It is as if one takes a small chip of gold from a cave made of gold. The cave and chip of gold are separate. Yet, they are the same. How can this be?” Answering her own question, Lena comments, “Because they are both comprised of the same chemical elements. Why do we even go through such a complex process? Is it all just a beautiful game?” Lena asks Kuan Yin. “The God Force likes intense pleasure,” expounds Kuan Yin. “However, the God Force experiences itself more clearly when it can separate itself out; obtaining a different point of view. Because of this separation, [becoming human--the personification of the “Always/Authentic Self”], there is the possibility for pain.

She imagined him leaning against the shuttle, entertaining thoughts of scolding her for dressing like a ragged commoner. Never mind that her present outfit was light years ahead in comfort. (Actually, he’s wishing he had been less critical of you earlier. He feels bad that you won’t acknowledge his presence, and he blames himself.) (Quit it, Ian. I’m not going to feel sorry for him.) She caught her protector’s shrewd grin, highlighted by the fire’s glow. (You already do, Queenie.) (This talent of yours is really annoying.) He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “That’s not what you thought earlier when you wanted to get ahold of Efren.” “One tiny rosebud in a handful of thorns,” she retorted.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid. I stood a-looking

It is rumored by the wise-brained rats which burrow the citied earth and by the knowledgeable cats that stalk its shadows and by the sagacious bats that wing its night and by the sapient zats which soar through airless space, slanting their metal wings to winds of light, that those two swordsmen and blood-brothers, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have adventured not only in the World of Nehwon with its great empire of Lankhmar, but also in many other worlds and times and dimensions, arriving at these through certain secret doors far inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes—whose great cave, in this sense, exists simultaneously in many worlds and times. It is a Door, while Ningauble glibly speaks the languages of many worlds and universes, loving the gossip of all times and places. In each new world, the rumor goes, the Mouser and Fafhrd awaken with knowledge and speaking skills and personal memories suitable to it, and Nehwon then seems to them only a dream and they know not its languages, though it is ever their primal homeland. It is even whispered that on one occasion they lived a life in that strangest of worlds variously called Gaia, Midgard, Terra, and Earth, swashbuckling there along the eastern shore of an inner sea in kingdoms that were great fragments of a vasty empire carved out a century before by one called Alexander the Great. So much Srith of the Scrolls has to tell us. What we know from informants closer to the source is as follows:

I nod at Afya. Immediately she claps me on the shoulder. “Good,” she says. “Now that that’s out of the way, what’s your plan?” “It’s—” I search for a word that will make my idea not look like complete lunacy, but realize that Afya would see right through me. “It’s insane,” I finally say. “So insane that I can’t imagine how it will work.” Afya lets out a peal of high laughter that rings through the cave. She is not mocking me—there is genuine amusement on her face as she shakes her head. “Skies,” Afya says. “I thought you told me you loved stories. Have you ever heard a story of an adventurer with a sane plan?” “Well . . . no.” “And why do you think that is?” I am at a loss. “Because . . . ah, because—” She chuckles again. “Because sane plans never work, girl,” she says. “Only the mad ones do.

Suddenly, Dan began to gesture frantically. I continued towards him while trying to figure out what he was trying to communicate. The mystery was solved when I came face-to-face with a giant moray eel. This eel was bright neon green and had probably been living in this cave, continuously growing since prehistoric times. I guessed the eel was a “she” because her mouth was always open and males rarely look so mean. She was as big around as I was at the waist, but she was much longer and stared at me with her mouth gaping open. The eel had no choice—she couldn’t close her mouth because it was packed to overflowing with jagged fangs. I frantically windmilled my arms, backpedaling through the water with all my strength. The eel decided to let me live, and I escaped and made a wide detour around her lair. Protected by their giant “Mother of all Eels,” her youngsters brazenly poked their snickering heads from the cave and laughed at me, calling me a dull-toothed, sissy air breather and hurling other embarrassing eel insults at me.

Eena worried to Ian in her thoughts. (You’re not going to let him walk away thinking what I think he’s thinking, are you?) (You won't change his mind. The evidence is a little suggestive. You should have just stayed behind me.) (Oh, this is all my fault?) (Well, you were the one swimming in your underwear.) (And you’re the one who took your shirt off!) (You think the alternative would have been better?) She shuttered at the thought of the Braetic stumbling across her in her underclothes. “Cale,” Eena said in another attempt to convince the stranger. Somehow she managed to sidestep Ian’s effort to halt her, and she approached the man. “I am not messing around with my protector. I am, and always have been, true and faithful to Derian. It’s just……a lot of weird things have happened lately.” The Braetic looked willing to consider a good excuse. “Such as?” “Well,” she started, casting a furtive glance at Ian. He was shaking his head, conveying strong disapproval. She ignored him. “Okay, well…..I’ve been fighting these immortals who are bent on using me to break free from an imprisoning gem where they were sentenced to stayed locked up for eternity. They nearly annihilated a world of Viiduns—that’s how awful they are! But one of these immortals has control over my necklace, and her brother keeps transporting me and my protector all over Moccobatra in search of pieces to a star-shaped platform they intend to use to free their bodies which have been trapped for over three-thousand years now. We were sent here at an inopportune—and highly embarrassing—moment to find the final piece to the platform. It’s been a nightmare just trying to stay alive!” “Wow,” Cale breathed, not looking half as concerned as Eena thought he ought to. “So these immortals are using you and trying to kill you at the same time?” She shook her head. “No, no, only the dragons are trying to kill me…or they were trying to kill me until Naga put a stop to them.” Eena heard Ian’s hand smack against his forehead. She saw humor sweep over the Braetic’s face. It made her angry. “Dragons too, huh?” Cale snickered. “It’s the truth!” she insisted. (Eena, just forget it. You’re only making it worse.) She ignored her protector’s advice again. “Cale, I’m telling you the honest-to-goodness truth. Do you know the story of Wanyaka Cave? The red-gemmed prison and the two spirit sisters?” Completely out of patience, Ian broke into the conversation, rudely speaking over his queen. “We’ll be on our way now, sir. We apologize for trespassing.” With a big grin on his face, the Braetic offered a friendly alternative. “Why don’t the pair of you accompany me home. I’m sure my wife can round up some suitable clothing for you. Those immortals must have a ripe sense of humor, leaving you alone in the woods without any decent attire.” He caught a chuckle in his throat. “That is unless it was the dragons who took the shirt off your back.” “Dragons are immortals!” Eena snapped, as if any fool ought to know it. Ian flashed her a harsh look. “We would greatly appreciate the help, sir.” “Oh, it’ll cost you something,” Cale informed them, “but we can discuss that on our way.

PART II THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO HIS OWN COUNTRY CHAPTER V. Odysseus on the Island of Calypso VI. Odysseus Constructs a Raft and Leaves the Island VII. Odysseus is Saved on the Island of Scheria VIII. Nausicaä is Sent to the River by Athena IX. Odysseus Arrives at the Palace of Alkinoös X. Odysseus in the Halls of Alkinoös XI. The Banquet in Honor of Odysseus XII. Odysseus Relates His Adventures XIII. The Lotus-Eaters and the Cyclops XIV. The Cave of the Cyclops XV. The Blinding of the Cyclops XVI. Odysseus and His Companions Leave the Land of the Cyclops XVII. The Adventures of Odysseus on the Island of Æolus XVIII. Odysseus at the Home of Circè XIX. Circè Instructs Odysseus Concerning His Descent to Hades XX. The Adventures of Odysseus in Hades XXI. Odysseus Converses with His Mother and Agamemnon XXII. Conversation with Achilles and Other Heroes XXIII. The Return of Odysseus to the Island of Circè XXIV. Odysseus Meets the Sirens, Skylla, and Charybdis XXV. Odysseus on the Island of Hēlios XXVI. The Departure of Odysseus from the Island of Scheria XXVII. Odysseus Arrives at Ithaca XXVIII. Odysseus Seeks the Swineherd

Ahmity reached out and created a ball of light in his hand sending it down past Jack and into the cave. He called out to Jack, “It will move as you command.” Jack frowned feeling a bit ridiculous talking to a ball of light and said, “Go three feet inside the cave and hover.” The ball floated quickly to the cave entrance and past the rushing water to hover just inside the cave entrance. “Move further in another 5 feet.” There was a large shadow to the right. “Move right 10 feet.” Jack commanded and the ball floated into a side tunnel and disappeared. Jack said, “Return to Ahmity.” The ball slowly accompanied Jack back up the cliff. When he reached the top Ahmity helped him up over the edge and waited for his report. Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “I could see a tunnel in the side of the cave about 10 feet inside the entrance. It’s large enough for the trolls pass through.” Ahmity shook his head and said, “If the trolls traveled back to the Netherworld from here then it’s possible the beasts escaped the same way.” Jack sighed and glanced back at the school then said, “Well there’s no way to know for sure unless we take a short trip down a black hole.” Coming soon--Vengeance's Fire

Flames lit every surface in the caves and lava floes burned all around him, like some version of the Realm of Death he had heard tales of in his youth. There were flames leaping out of holes in the walls and floor like fiery stalagmites. Cyrus Davidon stood in the midst of it all, minding his steps very carefully, lest his black armor end up blacker still from an inadvertent scorching. The sweat rolled off his face as he surveyed the group around him. Over one hundred adventurers, all with common purpose. They had come to this place intending to slay a dragon. There was some nobility in that, Cyrus reflected, but it was diminished by the fact that the dragon was trapped in these depths and not a threat to anyone but those looking for it. Which meant that most of them were here for the dragon’s sizeable treasure hoard. “There’s nothing like fighting for your life with a small army of opportunists to watch your back, is there?” Cyrus murmured. “You’re not joking. It makes you wonder if there’s even one of this lot we can trust,” came the voice of Narstron a dwarf who had traveled with Cyrus for many seasons and had shared a great many adventures with him. “Trust is earned, not given. This group is so raw they’ll be dead before they even prove themselves,” came the voice on the other side of Narstron. Andren was an elf by nature and a healer by trade, a spell caster with the ability to bind wounds through magical means. “This lot has seen far too few seasons – and this is likely their last. Dragons aren’t to be trifled with.” He peered

On the other side of the mountain, Drizzt Do'Urden opened his eyes from his daytime slumber. Emerging from the cave into the growing gloom, he found Wulfgar in the customary spot, poised meditatively on a high stone, staring out over the plain. "You long for your home?" the drow asked rhetorically. Wulfgar shrugged his huge shoulders and answered absently, "Perhaps." The barbarian had come to ask many disturbing questions of himself about his people and their way of life since he had learned respect for Drizzt. The Drow was an enigma to him, a confusing combination of fighting brilliance and absolute control. Drizzt seemed able to weigh every move he ever made in the scales of high adventure and indisputable morals. Wulfgar turned a questioning gaze on the drow. "Why are you here?" he asked suddenly. Now it was Drizzt who stared reflectively into the openness before them. The first stars of the evening had appeared, their reflections sparkling distinctively in the dark pools of the elf's eyes. But Drizzt was not seeing them; his mind was viewing long past images of the lightless cities of the drow in their immense cavern complexes far beneath the ground. "I remember," Drizzt recalled vividly, as terrible memories are often vivid, "'the first time I ever viewed this surface world. I was a much younger elf then, a member of a large raiding party. We slipped out from a secret cave and descended upon a small elven village." The drow flinched at the images as they flashed again in his mind. "My companions slaughtered every member of the wood elf clan. Every female. Every child." Wulfgar listened with growing horror. The raid that Drizzt was describing might well have been one perpetrated by the ferocious Tribe of the Elk. "My people kill," Drizzt went on grimly. "They kill without mercy." He locked his stare onto Wulfgar to make sure that the barbarian heard him well. "They kill without passion." He paused for a moment to let the barbarian absorb the full weight of his words. The simple yet definitive description of the cold killers had confused Wulfgar. He had been raised and nurtured among passionate warriors, fighters whose entire purpose in life was the pursuit of battle-glory - fighting in praise of Tempos. The young barbarian simply could not understand such emotionless cruelty. A subtle difference, though, Wulfgar had to admit. Drow or barbarian, the results of the raids were much the same. "The demon goddess they serve leaves no room for the other races," Drizzt explained. "Particularly the other races of elves." "But you will never come to be accepted in this world," said Wulfgar. "Surely you must know that the humans will ever shun you." Drizzt nodded. "Most," he agreed. "I have few that I can call friends, yet I am content. You see, barbarian, I have my own respect, without guilt, without shame." He rose from his crouch and started away into the darkness. "Come," he instructed. "Let us fight well this night, for I am satisfied with the improvement of your skills, and this part of your lessons nears its end." Wulfgar sat a moment longer in contemplation. The drow lived a hard and materially empty existence, yet he was richer than any man Wulfgar had ever known. Drizzt had clung to his principles against overwhelming circumstances, leaving the familiar world of his own people by choice to remain in a world where he would never be accepted or appreciated. He looked at the departing elf, now a mere shadow in the gloom. "Perhaps we two are not so different," he mumbled under his breath.

Must we always kill the people?’ ‘Oh, certainly. It’s best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it’s considered best to kill them — except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they’re ransomed.’ ‘Ransomed? What’s that?’ ‘I don’t know. But that’s what they do. I’ve seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to do.’ ‘But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?’ ‘Why, blame it all, we’ve GOT to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?’ ‘Oh, that’s all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ran- somed if we don’t know how to do it to them? — that’s the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?’ ‘Well, I don’t know. But per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed, it means that we keep them till they’re dead. ‘ ‘Now, that’s something LIKE. That’ll answer. Why couldn’t you said that before? We’ll keep them till they’re ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot they’ll be, too — eating up everything, and always trying to get loose.’ ‘How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there’s a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?’ ‘A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody’s got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that’s foolishness. Why can’t a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?’ ‘Because it ain’t in the books so — that’s why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don’t you? — that’s the idea. Don’t you reckon that the people that made the books knows what’s the correct thing to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn ‘em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we’ll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.

Perceptive and valuable personal explorations of time alone include A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland, Party of One by Anneli Rufus, Migrations to Solitude by Sue Halpern, Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton, The Point of Vanishing by Howard Axelrod, Solitude by Robert Kull, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, The Story of My Heart by Richard Jefferies, Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton, and the incomparable Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Adventure tales offering superb insight into solitude, both its horror and its beauty, include The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, and Alone by Richard E. Byrd. Science-focused books that provided me with further understanding of how solitude affects people include Social by Matthew D. Lieberman, Loneliness by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick, Quiet by Susan Cain, Neurotribes by Steve Silberman, and An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks. Also offering astute ideas about aloneness are Cave in the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie, The Life of Saint Anthony by Saint Athanasius, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (especially “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”) and Friedrich Nietzsche (especially “Man Alone with Himself”), the verse of William Wordsworth, and the poems of Han-shan, Shih-te, and Wang Fan-chih. It was essential for me to read two of Knight’s favorite books: Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Very Special People by Frederick Drimmer. This book’s epigraph, attributed to Socrates, comes from the C. D. Yonge translation of Diogenes Laërtius’s third-century A.D. work The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. The Hermitary website, which offers hundreds of articles on every aspect of hermit life, is an invaluable resource—I spent weeks immersed in the site, though I did not qualify to become a member of the hermit-only chat groups. My longtime researcher, Jeanne Harper, dug up hundreds of reports on hermits and loners throughout history. I was fascinated by the stories of Japanese soldiers who continued fighting World War II for decades on remote Pacific islands, though none seemed to be completely alone for more than a few years at a time. Still, Hiroo Onoda’s No Surrender is a fascinating account.

ACT I Dear Diary, I have been carrying you around for a while now, but I didn’t write anything before now. You see, I didn’t like killing that cow to get its leather, but I had to. Because I wanted to make a diary and write into it, of course. Why did I want to write into a diary? Well, it’s a long story. A lot has happened over the last year and I have wanted to write it all down for a while, but yesterday was too crazy not to document! I’m going to tell you everything. So where should we begin? Let’s begin from the beginning. I kind of really want to begin from the middle, though. It’s when things got very interesting. But never mind that, I’ll come to it in a bit. First of all, my name is Herobrine. That’s a weird name, some people say. I’m kinda fond of it, but that’s just me I suppose. Nobody really talks to me anyway. People just refer to me as “Him”. Who gave me the name Herobrine? I gave it to myself, of course! Back in the day, I used to be called Jack, but it was such a run-of-the-mill name, so I changed it. Oh hey, while we’re at the topic of names, how about I give you a name, Diary? Yeah, I’m gonna give you a name. I’ll call you… umm, how does Doris sound? Nah, very plain. I must come up with a more creative name. Angela sounds cool, but I don’t think you’ll like that. Come on, give me some time. I’m not used to coming up with awesome names on the fly! Yes, I got it! I’ll call you Moony, because I created you under a full moon. Of course, that’s such a perfect name! I am truly a genius. I wish people would start appreciating my intellect. Oh, right. The story, right, my bad. So Moony, when it all started, I was a miner. Yep, just like 70% of the people in Scotland. And it was a dull job, I have to say. Most of the times, I mined for coal and iron ore. Those two resources were in great need at my place, that’s why so many people were miners. We had some farmers, builders, and merchants, but that was basically it. No jewelers, no booksellers, no restaurants, nothing. My gosh, that place was boring! I had always been fascinated by the idea of building. It seemed like so much fun, creating new things from other things. What’s not to like? I wanted to build, too. So I started. It was part-time at first, and I only did it when nobody was around. Whenever I got some free time on my hands, I spent it building stuff. I would dig out small caves and build little horse stables and make boats and all. It was so much fun! So I decided to take it to the next level and left my job as a miner. They weren’t paying me well, anyway. I traveled far and wide, looking for places to build and finding new materials. I’m quite the adrenaline junkie, I soon realized, always looking for an adventure.

There is the Underground, all places which must be reached from caves or mine shafts or great rifts in the ground. These are the places where the sun does not and never has touched, where the creatures of story and legend are said to roam.

Akeldama is the one place I have never been to, because of the strange way that I feel when I get near to it. The Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Onuphrius stands on the exact place where it is believed Judas hanged himself. I should have realized that before. I just didn’t think about it.” “That’s kind of creepy.” Sam grimaced at the thought. “The monastery face, the old city’s walls and Mt. Zion,” she added. “You may find the area quite familiar, Sam. There are burial caves and tombs all over the area.” Sam widened his eyes. “We were there! Thousands of years ago, but we were there! That is so surreal. Do we need the monastery’s permission to go to the burial grounds?” “No,” she said, quickly. “All you need to do is let me know when you wish to go.

crawling on the floor. “I think there is a cave spider spawner down here,” Nina said as

I live in a world not at all like your own. In this world, there are four essential places. The Green is the places above ground, the places where trees and grass grow, where mountains rise up, the places where cows might moo woefully, waiting for a purpose in their lives. We live in the Green. There is the Underground, all places which must be reached from caves or mine shafts or great rifts in the ground. These are the places where the sun does not and never has touched, where the creatures of story and legend are said to roam. There is the Nether, a horrible, blasted landscape overrun by fire and the beasts that embody it, where infernal castles and strongholds dot the maps which never are finished. This place must be reached from a certain archway made of black stone, anointed with a drop of blood and burned. There is the End, from which no man has ever returned. There are legends that talk of a grand gate somewhere in the Green that pulsates with an acrid energy, which can only be seen by the stricken eyes of the already-dead. Nobody knows what is there.

Today, digital historians call Colossal Cave Adventure the “granddaddy” of text adventure games. A spelunker named Will Crowther made it for his daughters, to help show them his cave-crawling pastime as he endured a divorce with his wife. His work parented Charlotte and I all those summers, in a different era, when it felt like we children could lock ourselves away and go absent for hours without making our parents afraid.

I don't think he'd been working on anything, other than attempting to repair a toaster or blender or something. Mostly he just read and snoozed off and on. It was his man cave." She watched Mr. Carter's expression at this non-news. He didn't look particularly happy to hear it. He took his hat off and ran his hand over his bald head.

That’s something, right? (that’s everything when you have nothing, actually…) I

People who don’t read it, and even some of those who write it, like to assume or pretend that the ideas used in science fiction all rise from intimate familiarity with celestial mechanics and quantum theory, and are comprehensible only to readers who work for NASA and know how to program their VCR. This fantasy, while making the writers feel superior, gives the non-readers an excuse. I just don’t understand it, they whimper, taking refuge in the deep, comfortable, anaerobic caves of technophobia. It is of no use to tell them that very few science fiction writers understand “it” either. We, too, generally find we have twenty minutes of I Love Lucy and half a wrestling match on our videocassettes when we meant to record Masterpiece Theater. Most of the scientific ideas in science fiction are totally accessible and indeed familiar to anybody who got through sixth grade, and in any case you aren’t going to be tested on them at the end of the book. The stuff isn’t disguised engineering lectures, after all. It isn’t that invention of a mathematical Satan, “story problems.” It’s stories. It’s fiction that plays with certain subjects for their inherent interest, beauty, relevance to the human condition. Even in its ungainly and inaccurate name, the “science” modifies, is in the service of, the “fiction.” For example, the main “idea” in my book The Left Hand of Darkness isn’t scientific and has nothing to do with technology. It’s a bit of physiological imagination—a body change. For the people of the invented world Gethen, individual gender doesn’t exist. They’re sexually neuter most of the time, coming into heat once a month, sometimes as a male, sometimes as a female. A Getheian can both sire and bear children. Now, whether this invention strikes one as peculiar, or perverse, or fascinating, it certainly doesn’t require a great scientific intellect to grasp it, or to follow its implications as they’re played out in the novel. Another element in the same book is the climate of the planet, which is deep in an ice age. A simple idea: It’s cold; it’s very cold; it’s always cold. Ramifications, complexities, and resonance come with the detail of imagining. The Left Hand of Darkness differs from a realistic novel only in asking the reader to accept, pro tem, certain limited and specific changes in narrative reality. Instead of being on Earth during an interglacial period among two-sexed people, (as in, say, Pride and Prejudice, or any realistic novel you like), we’re on Gethen during a period of glaciation among androgynes. It’s useful to remember that both worlds are imaginary. Science-fictional changes of parameter, though they may be both playful and decorative, are essential to the book’s nature and structure; whether they are pursued and explored chiefly for their own interest, or serve predominantly as metaphor or symbol, they’re worked out and embodied novelistically in terms of the society and the characters’ psychology, in description, action, emotion, implication, and imagery. The description in science fiction is likely to be somewhat “thicker,” to use Clifford Geertz’s term, than in realistic fiction, which calls on an assumed common experience. The description in science fiction is likely to be somewhat “thicker,” to use Clifford Geertz’s term, than in realistic fiction, which calls on an assumed common experience. All fiction offers us a world we can’t otherwise reach, whether because it’s in the past, or in far or imaginary places, or describes experiences we haven’t had, or leads us into minds different from our own. To some people this change of worlds, this unfamiliarity, is an insurmountable barrier; to others, an adventure and a pleasure.

What? What will happen? What's supposed to happen? Who? Where? Nothing's ever happened yet, man, not yet! And the other answers: No, nothing's happened. Nothing. We still gnaw bones, still live in caves of wood and stone. Nothing's happened. Nothing's come. I know. But: cant it come any day? This evening? The day after tomorrow? It can even be round the next corner. In the next bed. On the other side. For some time it must come, the unexpected, the foreseen, the great, the new. The adventure, the mystery, the solution. At last perhaps there'll come the answer. And that, I should miss that? No, man, no never! Never and never! Don't you feel that something can happen? Don't ask what! Don't you feel that, eh? Don't you suspect it, inside and outside you? For it's coming, man, perhaps it's there already. Somewhere. Unrecognized. Secret. Perhaps we shall understand it tonight, tomorrow at noon, next week, on the death-bed. Or are we senseless? Abandoned to the laughter in us and round us? To sorrow, to tears and to the bellowing of night and terror? Abandoned? Perhaps? Perhaps surrendered? Perhaps lost? Is there no answer? Are we, we ourselves, that answer? Or not, man, answer. Tell me. Are we, in the last analysis, ourselves that answer. Do we have it in us, like death? From the very start? Do we carry death and the answer in us, you? It is up to us, whether there'll be an answer or not? Are we, after all, abandoned only to ourselves? Only to ourselves? Tell me, man: Are we ourselves the answer? Are we ourselves abandoned to ourselves? Are we? Tell me!

Our modern lives are very different from those of early humans, who hunted and gathered to survive. Their reverence for the natural world is evident in the early murals of wildlife they painted on cave walls and in the stylized visions of life they sculpted from bone and ivory. Our lives reflect remnants of our ancestral attachment to nature and the diversity of life - the concept of biophilia that was introduced early in this chapter. We evolved in natural environments rich in biodiversity, and we still have a biophilia for such settings. Indeed, our biophilia may be innate, an evolutionary product of natural selection acting on a brainy species who survival depended on a close connection to the environment and a practical appreciation of plants and animals. Our appreciation of life guides the field of biology today. We celebrate life by deciphering he genetic code that makes each species unique. We embrace life by using fossils and DNA to chronicle evolution through time. We preserve life through our efforts to classify and protect the millions of species on Earth. We respect life by using nature responsibly and reverently to improve human welfare. Biology is the scientific expression of our desire to know nature. We are most likely to protect what we appreciate, and we are mostly likely to appreciate what we understand. By learning about the processes and diversity of life, we also become more aware of ourselves and our place in the biosphere. We hope this text has served you well in this lifelong adventure.

Adventure itself prefers to remain dormant, featureless, and nameless; it is the adventurer who must awaken adventure, embody it, and remind it its name

Can you two stop arguing for one minute?” said Dave. “We need to work out where we are.” “We’re in a cave,” said Carl. “I thought that was obvious.

when he heard a noise coming from deeper in the cave. It was a slurping noise: SLOORP, SLOORP, SLOORP.

As dramatically as it is possible for me to do so, I have pictured those first weird happenings that led me almost to the brink of madness, and then to the most incredible adventure that ever befell a man. In order to give my knowledge to the world without being suspected of madness, I must present it in the guise of fiction. Remember that all this wordiness is supposed to be, but is not, just a way of convincing you momentarily of the truth of an obvious impossibility, for the sake of the escape from dull reality which it offers you. So, allow yourself really to believe, not just temporarily for the sake of the effect. This story will not seem like fiction to some who will read it. For it is substantially true; the caves, the good and wise users of the antique machines, the fantastic evil mis-users of the antique weapons, all these things are true things and exist in secret in many parts of the world. Keeping that secret has been a custom, a hereditary habit of the Elder underworld. Surface incredulity and fear of the supernatural has made it an open secret that keeps itself; for you will find that the case records of insane asylums are chock full of patients whose only complaint was that they heard mysterious voices in their minds. In this story, I intend to reveal the secret to the world, to those who have the intelligence to seek to understand what I say.

Entering the vestibule of Gough’s Cave today, a plastic skeleton lies on a sheet of plastic netting in the area where Cheddar Man was discovered. (The completeness of the ribcage and pelvis in displays like these – and indeed in any number of horror and adventure films – always irks me. When bodies rot, soft tissue – including cartilage and ligaments – decay. The ribs, once bound to the sternum by long rods of costal cartilage, then exist as separate bones, and collapse in a heap. The two bones of the pelvis eventually fall apart from each other at the front, where they were once joined by fibrocartilage, and away from the sacrum at the back, where the sacroiliac joint once existed. Plastic skeletons, with costal cartilages helping to keep the thorax three-dimensional, and complete pelves, abound in films, standing in for skeletons which really should be just bones. Now you know about this, it will irk you too.)

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.

Khun Mae went to bed past midnight. After a few minutes, her mouth opened. Her hair was a dark cloud on the pillow. Up and up, she drifted above her bed, through the white mosquito nets, until she was as light as a sea bird. She drifted through the open flap of her window, into the balmy night air. Through the rainstorm, she flew, over the city of Bangkok and its blurry lights, until the stars themselves, guided this bird on her journey into the mountains, and above Tham Luang cave.

Khun Mae went to bed past midnight. After a few minutes, her mouth opened. Her hair was a dark cloud on the pillow. Up and up, she drifted above her bed, through the white mosquito nets, until she was as light as a sea bird. She drifted through the open flap of her window, into the balmy night air. Through the rainstorm, she flew, over the city of Bangkok and its blurry lights, until the stars themselves, guided this bird on her journey into the mountains, and above Tham Luang cave.

A hundred miles beyond the point, the farthest point, the most distant point on the horizon. Out past the alkali flats and sinks; Misfit and Stillwater, Humboldt and Carson. Out over the mountains, ice age islands and archipelagos, Ichthyosaur, Columbian Mastodon boned talus slopes and scree fields. Beyond the Saltbrush, Bitterbrush, Creosote Plants and Rabbitbrush, petrified Redwood forests and Mount Mazama blowouts. Out over the playas, hoodos and springs, koi ponds and basins. Beyond the mustangs, horned lizards, whiptails and rattlers and over the abandoned mines; silver and gold, copper, bornite and cinnabar. Out past the hematite and jasper, chert and agate. Out over Lovelock, Spirit Cave and Wizard's Beach. Beyond the grinding rocks, diorite and granitic boulders cast adrift in a sea of sand, dust and wind. Beyond the Rye Grass, Rice Grass and Bunchgrass. Out over the land into the distance and beyond. The distance of a thousand years, a million years, a century, a lifetime. A distance of roads forgotten and graves abandoned, misplaced Iris and Lilac the only indication of a person's passing. Out past Bonneville, Daggett, Donner and Walker. The two tracks, the single tracks, the deer and coyote tracks, lizard tracks and no tracks at all. Out over the land.....

A hundred miles beyond the point, the farthest point, the most distant point on the horizon. Out past the alkali flats and sinks; Misfit and Stillwater, Humboldt and Carson. Out over the mountains, ice age islands and archipelagos, Ichthyosaur, Columbian Mastodon boned talus slopes and scree fields. Beyond the Saltbrush, Bitterbrush, Creosote Plants and Rabbitbrush, petrified Redwood forests and Mount Mazama blowouts. Out over the playas, hoodos and springs, koi ponds and basins. Beyond the mustangs, horned lizards, whiptails and rattlers and over the abandoned mines; silver and gold, copper, bornite and cinnabar. Out past the hematite and jasper, chert and agate. Out over Lovelock, Spirit Cave and Wizard's Beach. Beyond the grinding rocks, diorite and granitic boulders cast adrift in a sea of sand, dust and wind. Beyond the Rye Grass, Ricegrass and Bunchgrass. Out over the land and into the distance and beyond. The distance of a thousand years, a million years, a century, a lifetime. A distance of roads forgotten and graves abandoned, misplaced Iris and Lilac the only indication of a person's passing. Out past Bonneville, Daggett, Donner and Walker. The two tracks, the single tracks, the deer tracks, coyote tracks, lizard tracks and no tracks at all. Out over the land.....

Maybe because he smelled like jungles and steamships and adventures, like shadowed caves and unseen wonders, and my world was so ferociously mundane. Or maybe just because I’d been locked away and he hadn’t been there to open the door.

4 Danger Walks Among Us Mostly because of Sir Kipling’s scathing comments about frumpy old maids, Lily caved and wore a black cocktail dress instead of her normal pencil skirt suit. After all, she reasoned, she needed to blend in with the guests, and it was a black tie event. This little black dress was the kind every girl had languishing in the back of her closet, never worn yet prized for its potential.

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb. Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension. No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward-and so will space. William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage. If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace...

When I was growing up in the late 1950s and early ’60s, there was very little in the way of literate adventure writing. Periodicals that catered to our adolescent dreams of travel and adventure clearly held us in contempt. Feature articles in magazines that might be called Man’s Testicle carried illustrations of tough, unshaven guys dragging terrified women in artfully torn blouses through jungles, caves, or submarine corridors; through hordes of menacing bikers, lions, and hippopotami. The stories bore the same relation to the truth that professional wrestling bears to sport, which is to say, they were larger-than-life contrivances of an artfully absurd nature aimed, it seemed, at lonely bachelor lip-readers, drinkers of cheap beer, violence-prone psychotics, and semiliterate Walter Mitty types whose vision of true love involved the rescue of some distressed damsel about to be ravaged by bikers, lions, or hippopotami.

I thought of myself as haunted. Like a cave, or something dark and underwater, bristling with rocks and dead coral.

Well, I guess I should say something as well,” said the creeper. “When I first met Dave, I was living in a nice dark cave with regular access to baked potatoes. Throughout our journey, I’ve eaten loads of great potatoes. Some were slightly overcooked, and some were slightly too soft, but all of them were good in their own special way. It’s not always easy to cook a baked potato completely right, but when you do, it’s a thing of beauty. So, I’m thankful for every baked potato that I’ve eaten. Yes, I may have run out of baked potatoes at the moment, but I have hope that one day I’ll be back home, eating baked potatoes again. Thank you.” Carl sat down. “That was beautiful, Carl,” said Alex, wiping her tears away. “Beautiful?!” said Spidroth, looking at Alex in disbelief. “All he did was talk about baked potatoes!” “Yes, but he was really talking about friendship,” said Porkins. “Isn’t that right, Carl?” “No, I was just talking about baked potatoes,” said Carl. “Oh,” said Porkins. “But, er, out of all the idiots I’ve met, you guys are probably my favorite idiots,” said Carl. “And I suppose this adventure hasn’t been too terrible, as adventures go. Still, I’m very much looking forward to going home and never going on adventures again.

All hail outdoorsy types. Where would we be without them encouraging us up mountains or wheedling until we cave in and head into the wilderness with a sleeping bag on our back? Camping - and its chi-chi cousin, glamping - lends itself perfectly to coorie. Scotland's legal framework does, too: unlike England and Wales, where walkers must stay within set boundaries of the countryside, we can wander at whim. The same rights apply to sleeping overnight, which makes wild camping one of the most treasured aspects to roaming in Scotland. Hikers are safe in the knowledge that as long as they have a sensible tent and respect their surroundings, there is nothing to limit them. Come nightfall the adventure is far from over. In fact, a new one has just begun.

Outpost 1.

Luke was about to grab Windy and haul him out of the cave when he heard a man clearing his throat. Both boys turned their heads fast to see a hooded figure standing outside the cave. He was wearing a dark brown robe and holding a staff that was topped by a slender glowrod. The figure pulled back his hood to reveal the weathered face of a white-haired, bearded man. “I’m Ben Kenobi,” the man said. “We don’t have much time if I’m going to get you boys home.

set

Their synchrotron, a super-powerful x-ray machine, can harness the radiation of überfast subatomic particles in order to -- among many other things -- look inside solid objects. It's spectacular science, but sometimes I prefer not to think about all that energy and chaos around my precious findings.

By almost any definition, Homo naledi is not human. But if the present archaeological record reflects the complexity of Homo sapiens accurately, it means that naledi was significantly more complex than sapiens at the time.

Protein is more stable than DNA over time, and so this new technology offers a fresh way to study fossils.

Two-One Alpha, ready for you. Move it. We’re in kind of a hurry to find a quieter place!” Two wounded men were hauled to the helicopter first by four of their buddies, with the rest strafing the hill to keep the Taliban heads down. The fright and panic in the eyes and faces of the soldiers were clearly visible. Their screams rose above the thundering noise of the engines as they pushed the wounded in and then took up position outside the chopper to provide covering fire for the remaining men to get in. “All in. Let’s get out of here!” Leo shouted. “Grab tight. It’s going to be a rough ride boys!” John pulled the chopper into a steep climb while banking away from the hill. With no fire coming from the doorgun to keep them down, the full force and frustration of the enemy was now directed at the chopper and its occupants. They saw their prey escaping out of their hands right in front of their eyes. A burning pain shot through John’s back and legs as the body of the helicopter shuddered under the power of the two Rolls-Royce Gem turboshaft engines at full throttle. Smoke started to billow from the starboard engine. I have to get over that hill three miles away. Why am I dizzy? I have to get these boys out of trouble. I have to level the chopper and save power. I must get over that hill. I must get out of the reach of the bullets. “Doug! Doug! Can you hear me? What’s wrong man?” Leo screamed in a high-pitched, panicked voice. “Oh my God, you’ve been hit! Are you ok? Shit man, put the chopper down now. You’ll crash and kill us all!” “That hill … I have to get over it … out of range … I must get us there ...” Doug stuttered. “What was that? I can’t hear you. For God’s sake put the chopper down!” Leo shouted at the top of his voice. “Going down, going down … radio for help!” John whispered, a few seconds before everything went dark. The nightmare and the math Doug paid little heed to his passengers as he banked away from the canyon rim. Max was back there to help them. Doug had plenty on his mind, between the flashback to his crash in Afghanistan and wondering when whoever had shot two of his passengers would show up and try to shoot the chopper down here and now, over the Grand Canyon. Not to mention nursing the aging machine to do his bidding. Within minutes after takeoff from the canyon site, lying in the back of the chopper, JR and Roy were oblivious to their surroundings due to the morphine injection administered to them by Max Ellis – an ex-Marine medic and the third member of the Rossler boys’ rescue expedition. Others on the chopper had more on their minds. Raj was in his own world, eyes closed, wondering about his wife Sushma, their child, and the future. He and Sushma were not the outdoors adventure and camping types – living in a cave with other people was going to take some getting used to for them. They both grew up and had lived in the city all their lives. How was this going to work out

Dear Fiona, I’m sure by now you’ve probably figured out that these adventures are more about you than they are about me. If this were truly my bucket list, you’d probably still be lost after spelunking in a cave right now. But this isn’t about me. My only regret would have been for you to continue to mourn me after I’m gone and not live the most epic life you possibly could. Your heart is too big to keep it contained to little ol’ me. Spread that shit around. Bring joy and love to others the way you have to me, and make sure you get it in return. Love always and forever, Kia

The tunnel led through dark, damp, open caves, the track rolling across a bridge high above the depths of ravines, and every now and again, a lone skeleton would lob an arrow our way, or a zombie would stumble off the edge of the path and fall to its doom.

I introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of Kôr.—The Editor.

IN THE 1930S a zealous French surgeon called Pierre Barbet became passionately fascinated by the details of crucifixion. To test whether the hand could support the body’s weight he experimented by nailing cadavers to a wooden cross. Making a guess at Jesus’s weight and the position of the arms with respect to the torso during Roman crucifixion, he calculated that the nails must have been hammered through the small bones of the wrist rather than the palm. Those wrist bones – the “carpus” – are held together very tightly by ligaments; Barbet found that if he nailed his corpses by the wrists rather than the palms, they didn’t tear out. Pierre Barbet published his experiments on the nailing of a human body in the 1930s, but in 1968, in a burial cave near Jerusalem, a skeleton was found of a young man who’d been crucified during the Roman period. A

I was drug through the cave away from the others.

From The Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Mundane Happenings Life is just packed with “Mundane Happenings!” It’s the mundane happenings that usually take the most time and they always seem to interfere, just about when you want to do something really important. Let’s start with mundane things that are routine, like doing the dishes and taking out the garbage. The list for a single person might be a little less involved or complicated but it would be every bit as important as that of a married couple or people with lots of children or even pets. Oh yes, for some the list of mundane responsibilities would include washing clothes and taking the children to their activities. You know what I mean… school, sports, hobbies, their intellectual endeavors and the like. For most of us beds have to be made, the house has to be kept clean, grass has to be cut and the flowers have to be pruned. Then there are the seasonal things, such as going trick or treating, buying the children everything they need before school starts or before going to summer camp. Let’s not forget Christmas shopping as well as birthdays and anniversaries. This list is just an outline of mundane happenings! I’m certain that you can fill in any of these broad topics with a detailed account of just how time consuming these little things can be. Of course we could continue to fill in our calendar with how our jobs consume our precious time. For some of us our jobs are plural, meaning we have more than one job or sometimes even more than that. I guess you get the point… it’s the mundane happenings that eat up our precious time ferociously. Blink once and the week is gone, blink twice and it’s the month and then the year and all you have to show for it, is a long list of the mundane things you have accomplished. Would you believe me, if I said that it doesn’t have to be this way? Really, it doesn’t have to, and here is what you can do about it. First ask yourself if you deserve to recapture any of the time you are so freely using for mundane things. Of course the answer should be a resounding yes! The next question you might want to ask yourself is what would you do with the time you are carving out for yourself? This is where we could part company, however, whatever it is it should be something personal and something that is fulfilling to you! For me, it became a passion to write about things that are important to me! I came to realize that there were stories that needed to be told! You may not agree, however I love sharing my time with others. I’m interested in hearing their stories, which I sometimes even incorporate into my writings. I also love to tell my stories because I led an exciting life and love to share my adventures with my friends and family, as well as you and future generations. I do this by establishing, specifically set, quiet time, and have a cave, where I can work; and to me work is fun! This is how and where I wrote The Exciting Story of Cuba, Suppressed I Rise, now soon to be published as a “Revised Edition” and Seawater One…. Going to Sea! Yes, it takes discipline but to me it’s worth the time and effort! I love doing this and I love meeting new friends in the process. Of course I still have mundane things to do…. I believe it was the astronaut Allen Shepard, who upon returning to Earth from the Moon, was taking out the garbage and looking up saw a beautifully clear full Moon and thought to himself, “Damn, I was up there!” It’s the accomplishment that makes the difference. The mundane will always be with us, however you can make a difference with the precious moments you set aside for yourself. I feel proud about the awards I have received and most of all I’m happy to have recorded history as I witnessed it. My life is, gratefully, not mundane, and yours doesn’t have to be either.” Captain Hank Bracker, author of the award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba.

The cave sits tucked deep within the mass of rocks that sprout like moles from the forest floor.

Whatever She may have been thought to signify, its impact upon publication was tremendous. Everyone read it, especially men; a whole generation was influenced by it, and the generation after that. A dozen or so films have been based on it, and a huge amount of the pulp-magazine fiction churned out in the teens, twenties, and thirties of the twentieth century bears its impress. Every time a young but possibly old and/or dead woman turns up, especially if she’s ruling a lost tribe in a wilderness and is a hypnotic seductress, you’re looking at a descendant of She. Literary writers too felt Her foot on their necks. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness owes a lot to Her, as Gilbert and Gubar have indicated. James Hilton’s Shangri-La, with its ancient, beautiful, and eventually crumbling heroine, is an obvious relative. C. S. Lewis felt Her power, fond as he was of creating sweet-talking, good-looking evil queens; and in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, She splits into two: Galadriel, powerful but good, who’s got exactly the same water-mirror as the one possessed by She; and a very ancient cave-dwelling man-devouring spider-creature named, tellingly, Shelob

A few minutes later, the old woman had led the fated eight from the cave and across a small meadow of purple grass and orange flowers. When they walked around a large boulder, her house came into view: it was a gigantic baked potato with a door and windows. Carl gasped and rushed toward the house. He fell to his knees and raised his arms to heaven in silent praise. Then, he leaned forward and began to eat the wall of the house. “You actually do live inside of a baked potato!” said Porkins. “How fun!” “Stop eating my house,” shouted the old lady, giving Carl a quick swat with her wooden stick. Carl backed away from the house. “When we get back to our world, I’m making myself a baked potato house no matter what.” “You’d be homeless in a week or less, old bean,” said Porkins. “You’d give new meaning to the expression to eat yourself out of house and home.

And just think: a quote from Aeneas’s adventure, the Aeneid, now romantically adorns the outer wall of the necropolis deep within the cave beneath George Bush’s newest temple of Apollo. For a visual demonstration of the symbolism behind this new Temple dedicated to Apollo watch the following Judah Vision video: ‘Satan Invoked SuperBowl 52 | Satanic Halftime Show Video.

Colossal Cave (also known as Adventure—not to be confused with the Atari VCS game of the same name) was developed by assembly-language programmer William Crowther

If a fairy makes a wish to leave the fairy cave, she must return to the cave every year and always on her birthday to live as a tiny fairy on that day. If she fails to obey the Fairy Queen’s Rules, she’ll turn to fairy dust, forever.

I think of Baghdad years ago, when I met Professor Al-Rawi for the first time to discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his favorite book by his favorite American. He awarded me the task of reading it in the off-term, when the other students of English relaxed at home. Each day, I went to his office on the Karada campus and he explained to me things which I could not have possibly understood then. Truly, I did not comprehend a single thing at first. How Mark Twain wrote. How these Americans spoke, so ignorant and rough. Why Americans today thought of this story of terribly behaved children as high art. "Kateb, you must understand the context," Professor Al-Rawi said. "What the American reader knew then, what Americans today do not remember, and what you certainly cannot understand. These were not just boys making silly plans in caves. These were boys growing up just in time for their war. Sitting there, making plans to start this robber's gang, this was quite humorous to Americans reading the book in the nineteenth century." "But not Americans of today?" He lit a cigarette. "Humorous, yes. But for other reasons. You see, Americans today...forget. Ten years after these boys met to scheme in caves, their civil war fell upon them. These boys, these Missouri boys, they would have cut each other's throats in that war. And the sides they would pick? This was determined in their youth, you see." We were silent for a moment as I considered this. "Have you thought about Huck Finn cutting Tom Sawyer's throat?" he asked. "No." "You should, Kateb. You should think about that." Then he smiled, like he knew all along what would come for us.

Supernatural creatures never known to men lurked in many a chasm and crevice and cave; conquerors and warlords, sorceresses and wizards, plotted and schemed, dreaming their dreams and working their marvels. A worldwide land lay beneath their flying keel, a world they had as yet only begun to explore, a world that held yet many strange and perilous adventures for them.

Père Loyau was born on August 26, 1896, nine decades ago. He is mystified that his son, who ran a tabac in Tours, retired before he has. Loyau is five foot four, wiry (I saw him lift two full cases of Vouvray at the same time), white-haired, and invariably appears in a dapper, tightly knotted necktie. His cave is indeed a cave in the hillside: chalk walls, dirt floor, stone-cold. Once I met another old fellow, an octogenarian, who had worked all his life under refrigeration in a meat-packing plant, and like Loyau he had a delicate, rosy, remarkably wrinkle-free complexion. Is the icy cave also responsible for Loyau’s incredible exuberance? Let us hope the wine of Vouvray contributed something, because we can all lay our hands on some of that.

The gang members never went the same way to or from the cave. This eliminated creating a path that would make their trail easier to follow. While the principle was sound, it was a bad choice in this case.

away

The prospect of a revenge-driven, malevolent, vicious creature stalking her didn't phase Vic. In her earlier life, the cave girl Nat-ul was a staple to an assortment of ferocious beasts. Being on the menu but staying off the plate was the way you lived life in those days.

As you think about your own path to daring leadership, remember Joseph Campbell’s wisdom: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Own the fear, find the cave, and write a new ending for yourself, for the people you’re meant to serve and support, and for your culture. Choose courage over comfort. Choose whole hearts over armor. And choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid. At the exact same time.

I know my name, so I don’t need to introduce myself…to myself.

Hello! Sorry for interrupting you while you are having your…grass…your lunch, but may I ask you something?” “Moo!” “Umm…is  that a YES? Or is that NO?

Thank you! Umm, what are you…?” “I am a Cow, honey…” “Well, thank you, Cow!” “You are all welcome sweetie!